


Warmth, Spice, and Everything Nice

by ThePrimeOne



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Happy Birthday Ashe Duran | Ashe Ubert, Petrashe Week (Fire Emblem), Petrashe Week 2020, Pre-Timeskip | Academy Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-18
Updated: 2020-10-18
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:01:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27072403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThePrimeOne/pseuds/ThePrimeOne
Summary: “You aren’t serious, are you?” Ashe asked, rubbing the back of his neck with his free hand. The girl across from him raised an eyebrow, the gaze she had upon him he could only describe as a ‘caring glare’ that said try me.Or, in which Petra realises Ashe is sick and takes care of him.For Day 7 and Day 8 of Petrashe Week 2020.
Relationships: Ashe Duran | Ashe Ubert/Petra Macneary
Comments: 6
Kudos: 34





	Warmth, Spice, and Everything Nice

**Author's Note:**

> For Day 7 (Food) and Day 8 (Ashe's Birthday) of Petrashe Week 2020.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, Ashe knew the heat of summer would get to him again. He had, after all, lived all of his life in Faerghus. Even in Gaspard, located on the outskirts of the country, had warmer summers than most, yet still couldn’t compare to the comparatively blistering summer that made up three of his first five months at the monastery.

He’d fallen ill once before, at the start of the summer. Manuela had swiftly provided him with medicine and strict orders not to attend class or to his assigned chores. The other Blue Lions were more than willing to accommodate the sudden changes for their friend while he recovered. Still, Ashe always felt incredibly guilty for it- and insisted on promising to do his best to make up for it, even if they all assured Ashe that wasn’t necessary.

So when he fell ill again in the halfway through autumn, when even summer’s heat still lingered like an old lover that couldn’t move on, Ashe tried his best to suppress any feelings of guilt he’d felt months before. 

Keyword being ‘tried’. After all, it was the day before his birthday, the day before the Blue Lions had not-so-subtly planned a birthday celebration for him. Ashe knew that he’d be letting them down if he fell ill before they could celebrate, but Ashe knew from experience that he could easily sleep it off and be right up on his feet a day later.

And even so, when jolted back to the present when he’d decided to venture to market with one Petra Macneary (when his gut told him otherwise), he couldn’t help but feel better about his decision. And he could hardly resist the thought of spending time with her. Petra’s company was always most welcomed, one that ever made an adventure out of the smallest things, even down to short shopping trips. 

So of course, when he started to feel his face heat up, and his head go light, he didn’t want to think much of it. 

“Ashe, are you feeling well?,” Petra asked, concerned. “You have been coughing and sneezing much since we are arriving here.”

“Oh, that?” Ashe tried to smile before coughing into the inside of his elbow. “Just my sinuses acting up. Nothing some fresh air won’t fix, though,” he reassured her, finally flashing a small smile her way. 

“I see. Very well, then. Let us be finding these final items for the professor, shall we?” Petra stepped ahead of him, leading the way forward.

“Yes,” Ashe nodded. “Let’s go and- ah!”

In a flash, Petra had turned around and pressed the back of her hand against his forehead. Her eyes squinted at it, her suspicions confirmed. “Just as I was thinking, you are unwell. You are feeling quite warm,” the Princess frowned. She pressed her hands against his shoulders and pushed him lightly. “I am thinking some resting in your room will have sufficiency.” 

Ashe smiled, grateful for her concern. “Oh, that? It’s nothing major. If it were, I’d be in my room resting already, but I appreciate you looking out for me, Petra. Really, I appreciate your concern, but I’ll be fine.”

While it was true it was nothing major, Petra, perceptive as she always was, brought their shopping trip to an abrupt halt and attempted to urge him back to his room. 

“Ashe,” Petra said, her lips flattening into a stern line, and her arms crossed. “I will be dragging you to your room if you are not going now.”

The young boy blinked at her sudden shift in tone. He shook his head and smiled grimly. 

“You aren’t serious, are you?” Ashe asked, rubbing the back of his neck with his free hand. The girl across from him raised an eyebrow, the gaze she had upon him he could only describe as a ‘caring glare’ that said  _ try me _ . 

And so, he did. He turned back around to the small marketplace and took all but one step before he was stopped. With Petra’s hand locked around his wrist, she pulled him along. They went out of the marketplace and quickly through the shortcut near the pond.

“P-Petra, wait,” Ashe wriggled his wrist a little, only for her to tighten her grip. He could wriggle out of it with enough effort. Still, he ultimately gave in, not wanting to cause more of a scene as they already had as they approached the dorms, past the curious gazes of the monastery’s faculty and grins of their fellow students.

“Get a room you two!” Sylvain hollered from the steps leading to the dining hall as they passed by the pond.

“He will be getting one!” Petra exclaimed back, eyes still glued ahead and not bothering to understand what the strange Fodlan saying meant. Ashe blushed and bit back the urge to say something about as Sylvain’s roaring laughter echoed through the air, but thankfully Ingrid was taking care of that when he looked back. The two soon urgently arrived at Ashe’s doorstep, Petra letting go of his wrist. She crossed her arms and huffed. 

“Ashe. Please be resting now,” she pointed to his door. Her eyes squinted, then went wide as saucers as she got a better look at his face.  _ “Ó Biotáille _ ,” gasped Petra, muttering something in her native language. “Ashe, your face is being very red. You are being worse than before. Go into your room, and I will be getting medicine from Professor Manuela for you,” she said urgently with an edge of panic. 

Petra opened his door slightly and snagged the bag from his hands. “W-while I’m thankful for your helping me Petra, um, I’m not red because I’m sick,” Ashe coughed awkwardly, one cough being enough Petra needed to see to insist further.

“Please go inside your room, Ashe,” Petra gently pushed him towards the door until he was entirely in his room. “I will be finding medicine from Professor Manuela, and I will be returning to you as soon as I can be.”

She closed the door quickly once he was inside and Ashe stared at it, his hand partially outstretched to stop her. His hand fell down to his side as Ashe let out a sigh.

“Well, I guess there’s no point in trying to stop her,” Ashe sighed. He flopped down on his desk’s chair and threw off his boots and changed out of his uniform into something more comfortable, opting to toss his uniform over the chair. He’d wash them later.

The boy crawled into his bed. Sheets pulled over him as he stared at the roof surrounded by an eerie silence. He tossed and turned first towards the wall next to his bed, then to the wall where his desk was stationed. Ashe couldn’t shake off a pang of guilt, he felt within himself, a little disappointed in himself; though he was the only one to blame. Ashe often found himself helping and taking care of others that it felt odd when others offered to take care of him. Though he admitted, it felt nice when his classmates insisted on helping with his chores they had to fill in for and fetched food for him when breakfast and dinner had rolled around. Strangely, those warm feelings flared up more intensely than before when Petra had shooed him away into his room.

Ashe turned entirely on his side and buried his forearm beneath his pillows as he eased himself into a deep sleep, just for a few moments until Petra returned. 

_ “Wa… p... She…” _

Though, as it turned out, a few moments turned into a few minutes. 

“ _ Ashe…” _

A few minutes turned into a few hours until Ashe abruptly felt his body stir from a distant voice in his dreams.

“Ashe. Please be waking up,” a voice called out to him nearby. Ashe’s eyes slowly creaked open, squinting at beams of afternoon sun that invaded his room. He turned his head to the right to find Petra sitting on his desk chair, looking at him with a worried frown.

“Hello, Ashe” she mumbled. “Are you feeling better?” 

“Oh, hey Petra,” Ashe groaned, pushing himself up against the headboard. “And no, not really. Still have an earth-shattering headache, and I think my runny nose is going to come back any moment now,” he grumbled.

Petra nodded, understanding his symptoms. “I see. Well, I have found the medicine for your hurting head and the run in your nose,” she said, handing-off a small bottle to him. “Be drinking half of this. Manuela is telling me that if you are not feeling better after four hours, drink the other half. If you are not feeling better after that, then you must be seeing her in the infirmary.”

Ashe stared at the pink concoction with apprehension. He put the bottle to his lips and downed half of the bottle as Petra told him. He placed the bottle back on the cap and made a face from the initial and after taste, somehow hitting him at once.

“It tastes like strawberries but… not? Like a strawberry that’s off?” Ashe frowned. “I don’t know what it’s supposed to be exactly, but it’s not very pleasant.”

Petra giggled at the face he made, and Ashe tried very hard to ignore that way his chest tightened at hearing the delightful sound. “I am not sure either, but I am trusting Manuela’s skills in making and finding such concoctions. But, if you are wanting, I have something I can be helping you with to be rid of the bad taste.”

Ashe watched her curiously as she walked to his desk where a tray sat, a bowl and some utensils placed on top of it. Petra put her foot behind one of the front chair legs and dragged it along the floor. She carefully placed it on the chair, close enough that Ashe could easily pick it up and put it back without dropping it everywhere.

Ashe reached down for the bowl and curiously and picked it up, he peered down at the contents, and his eyes widened. A steaming bowl of Fish and Bean Soup sat before him, one of his most favourite meals the monastery’s dining hall had to offer. His widened and his mouth hung open in surprise.

“Petra,” Ashe looked at his classmate with a wide smile. “Did you ask the chefs in the dining hall to make this?”

The Princess nodded her head. “Yes. It was why I was taking so long, so please have my apologies, Ashe.” 

“No, no!” Ashe burst almost immediately in response; Petra took by surprise. “Petra, you really didn’t have to do this, but it was worth the wait either way. Thank you so much!” Ashe replied almost too happily for the miserable state his body was in.

Ashe reached for a spoon and dipped it into the bowl with an excited grin. He scooped up a mouthful and began to eat the contents of the soup himself.

Ashe frowned, more confused if anything. He’d tasted Dedue’s cooking before. The man had a mastery that few others in the monastery could equal. It was apparent to Ashe when certain dishes he loved weren’t made by Dedue, Bernadetta, Mercedes, Professor Manuela, and strangely enough, Gilbert.

This wasn’t made by anyone he knew. It had a unique taste to it unlike any he had before- one that he immensely enjoyed. Whoever made it, Ashe knew it was made with lots of love, as his parents used to say. 

Ashe caught Petra shifting on his bed as he stared at his bowl with a frown. He didn’t take note of it aloud as he raised the bowl to his lips and took a sip of the broth. Ashe gently moved it away and licked some residue off his lips. He looked up and smiled at Petra.

“Thank you so much, Petra. It’s fantastic,” he said genuinely. His words caused Petra to exhale a breath she didn’t realise she was holding. 

She sheepishly smiled in return. “I am thankful for your kind words, Ashe.”

Upon seeing the way she relaxed after he complimented the soup, a thought occurred to him; and with little warning, he tilted his head and blurted out a question with little thought for consequences. 

“Petra, did you make this?”

The question was innocent enough. If Petra didn’t make it, then someone else at the kitchen simply did, perhaps whoever was on kitchen duty. If Petra made it, then the labour of love thought took on a whole new meaning he didn’t want to think about while she sat so close to him.

The young girl clasped her hands together and bit her lip- wait, was she nervous? Before Ashe could let another thought cross his mind, his initial one was confirmed when she nodded hesitantly.

“Yes. I was making that soup for you, Ashe,” she admitted. She cleared her throat and continued. “I was knowing you are liking that meal, so it is giving me happiness that you have enjoyment of it,” she bashfully beamed. “I am not the best at cooking; I am thinking. Well, better than Dorothea maybe, spirits bless her. But it is reassuring to hear your compliments.”

“Not the best?” Ashe chuckled and shook his head. “Petra, you should really give yourself more credit. I’m not really into spicy food all that much, but this? The spices in the soup you’ve put in to create a kind of fish and bean soup I’ve never had before. This dish is fantastic. I mean it, truly,” Ashe attested by consuming more of the food with a hearty and content expression.

She blushed lightly at his praise. “Ashe, your words are having more meaning than I can say. You have my gratitude.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that. It’s the least I can do,” Ashe smiled and returned to his food. The two of them exchanged more small talk and decently long-lived conversations that were about as lively as they could be with Ashe flinching and sniffling all the while.

Sometime later, Ashe finished his soup in a surprising amount of time, the bowl placed on the tray next to his bed.

“Thank you again, Petra,” he extended his thanks to her once again. “You know, I was thinking. Maybe when I get out of bed, I should make you something too,” he suggested.

Petra’s bashful smile dissipated, the Princess looking at him with an intense frown. She shook her head. “Please do not be doing that Ashe. I am knowing your cooking is wonderful, but I am afraid you will not recover in time for your day of birth.”

Oh yes. He’d forgotten about that.

Ashe’s pensively looked at the bowl again and ate another mouthful of food and broth. “I suppose that’s fair,” he shrugged. The girl who sat on the edge of his bed tilted her head, her gaze staring at him curiously.

“Are you not being excited for tomorrow?

“I guess I am,” Ashe shrugged. “I, unfortunately, know about the surprise my house has for me. They’re not exactly subtle when it comes to planning surprises, unfortunately,” he chuckled.

Petra nodded with an expression that bordered on somewhere between sad, determined and nervous all at once. “I see. That is a shame. Well, I am thinking that this was a surprise, yes?”

Ashe laughed heartily. “Yes, I suppose it was. Did you plan on doing this for my birthday at all, or was this a coincidence?”

“Well,” Petra began. “This was not planned, but,” she said confidently, yet faltered a little. “I was wanting to be finding a gift for you, Ashe. But I was not sure if I could be finding one you would be liking. That is why I was wanting you to be with me at the market today.”

“Oh. Well, I suppose that makes sense. Did you ever find something you wanted to get me?” Ashe asked cautiously and curiously.

The girl looked away to the door of Ashe’s dorm. “...Yes. I was eventually thinking of a gift. That was the soup. But I also thought of another one.”

“Oh? Well, I can’t wait to see it tomorrow,” he said giddily.

Petra stood up and walked toward where the tray sat, glaring at the bowl as if it were teasing her, though Ashe couldn’t tell either way. She breathed in and turned on her heels to face him.

“No. I… I am wanting to be giving it to you now before anyone else is seeing it,” she announced with more determination than ever. Surprised, Ashe shifted to make himself more comfortable against the bedrest again.

“Really? Oh, well if you want to, I’m willing to listen.”

Petra looked down and took a seat next to Ashe closer to the bed rest. Ashe felt himself blush at her closer proximity and Petra flushed, hoping she wouldn’t regret her decision.

“I am wanting your eyes closed. Then I will show you, Ashe.”

Confused, the boy did as she asked and waited patiently for her signal to open them again. He aimlessly drummed his fingers on his arms as she remained silent.

Then the mattress move, as if she were leaning toward him- and before he knew it something pressed against his warm cheek. His eyes shot open immediately, and for a second watched Petra move away from him, her face in all of its glory marked in a deep red blush.

“Petra…” Ashe said breathlessly.

The girl shyly smiled, and Ashe’s heartbeat went through the roof.

_ Did that happen? Did that really just happen?  _ He asked internally, every part of him shutting down from the sheer surprise of one action. Then Ashe frowned deeply, imitating her from earlier.

“Petra. You could get sick too by doing that.”

“Oh? Was that not to your liking? Please be having…”

“W-wait, no!” Ashe vehemently disagreed with her. “It’s just. I don’t want you getting sick by getting too close to me, you know?”

Petra placed a finger on her chin in thought. “I suppose. But it will be worth it, I am thinking.”

Ashe gaped at her and shook his head. “Honestly, Petra…”

She giggled once again and pressed her lips to his cheek once more. 

“Happy birthday, Ashe. I am hoping your presents are having the sufficiency.” 

Ashe laughed happily back as if in those few moments with Petra were what had begun to heal him entirely.

“Thank you, Petra.”

**Author's Note:**

> And there it is! The last of the Petra/Ashe fics I have for Petrashe Week 2020. I decided to combine these two fic ideas I had since I couldn't be bothered to finish day 7 and 8 (the demotivation from having my day 1, 2 and 3 fics disappear days before Petrashe Week started was killing me. 
> 
> Despite that, I never thought we'd reach this point, with it being the end of Petrashe Week, but hey, here we are! If you're reading this, thank you for taking the time to not only read this fic but anything else you may have read for Petrashe Week 2020! 
> 
> As always, comments and kudos are appreciated.


End file.
